Fall Came

...finally, about 6pm on Thursday night. A cold front finally made it feel like season the calendar has been saying for a month and a half. If it were up to me, the leaves would begin changing on the first of September and warm, golden days would give way to cool, breezy nights. Around October, you would start to need to jacket, nothing big, just something light to keep the chill off. By November, every outfit would include a scarf.

But this is Texas and it was 85 degrees at Sea World last weekend. The only sign of fall has been the drop in our electric bill as we use (slightly) less A/C. But let's not dwell...fall came. And with it, my desire for all things Halloween.

My parents came to visit last weekend and my mom joined me in making some of these Halloween pennants. I'm a lover of cute Halloween over scary Halloween so these are the the perfect decorations for our front porch and my parent's fireplace. I made mine out of craft foam to make it a bit more weather resistant than paper.

Also sweet, not scary was this hat-ette (or pumpkin beret as was sung to my Prince-style by a coworker) that I made to go with my stenciled pumpkin shirt.

I finished my beret in time for my office Halloween party for which I also made these "witches' cauldrons." My mom shared the recipe with me. It is just brownie bites topped with rice crispies in melted caramels and mini M&Ms. The cauldron's handle is black licorice.

I wore the shirt, but not the hat to run in the Dia de los Muertos 8K Night Run on Friday. I didn't prepare for it as well as I should have, but I was pleased with the run. The first mile was great and pretty fast, the second was really tough, and miles 3-5 felt good. The park was dark so we ran in headlamps which felt a bit like running on a treadmill - you don't really feel like you are going anywhere.

On Saturday, we joined the Holtzes for some pumpkin carving. Geoff was intensely focused. This is his concentration face:

I decided to do the most detailed pattern in the book (cause I'm overly ambitious in pretty much everything). Just transferring the pattern took half an hour. But I was so pleased with the results.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!